Google movie charts the struggles of doing no evil

By Asher Moses

The story of how Google went from a garage start-up to earning almost $US25 billion a year is heading to Hollywood, hot on the heels of a feature film about the tortuous early days of Facebook.

Groundswell Productions has teamed with producer John Morris to acquire the movie rights to Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, which was written by New Yorker media columnist Ken Auletta.

About to take on Facebook?: Google co-founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page.

Deadline.com reported that the crew would use the book as a blueprint for a feature film telling the story of the rise of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and the juggernaut search engine that made them billionaires.

Michael London, of Groundswell Productions, told Deadline the film would focus on how Brin and Page tried to hang on to their ideals of making money without doing evil as Google became a global titan.

Advertisement

"It's about these two young guys who created a company that changed the world, and how the world in turn changed them," London told the site

"The heart of the movie is their wonderful edict, 'Don't be evil.' At a certain point in the evolution of a company so big and powerful, there are a million challenges to that mandate.

"Can you stay true to principles like that as you become as rich and powerful as that company has become?"

But London said the intention was "to be sympathetic to Sergey and Larry".

Auletta's book focuses on the destruction of traditional media industries, now battling to make money from news, music, video and books in a media landscape that has been turned on its head by Google.

David Fincher's The Social Network, which centres on the founding of Facebook, is set for release in Australia on November 25.

Written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires, the film features a strong cast including Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake.

The film has been controversial even before its release, as leaked scripts showed it portrays Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as greedy, immoral and driven by a desire to meet girls.

The release of the trailer of The Social Network inspired a legion of parody offerings.